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May I call you father?
(2003)
How does the body into which a baby is born become a sexual body? Do the anatomical characteristics of masculine or feminine constitute guarantee for a subject to say that he/she is a man or a woman? – The passage from identifications to identity is a most complex one. To try to clarify this process the author starts by making some reflections on the notion of identity itself from the psychoanalytical point of view. This leads to a central question which is to know if one is born a boy or a girl, or if one becomes one. Working with the fundamental concept of primary identification and the distinction of sex and gender, the author shows, through a clinical vignette, that anatomy is no assurance for a construction of a feeling of gender identity according to the anatomical sex.
Assuming that psychic reality and social phenomena are two sides of the same social totality, this article attempts to discuss the building up of the concept of superego in the Freudian text emphasizing its social roots and the function it performs as the representative of the symbolic law. Critical turning points in the development of the concept are presented and possible theoretical consequences of Freud's argument in >Civilization and its Discontents< are questioned when considered against the background of our present society determined by globalization and consumption. The author concludes by suggesting that the contemporary superego may represent an erractic reaction against the conditions prevalent in the social realm. Thus it appears to